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BBC Radio 2 broadcast: 5th September 2016
Beverley Knight tells the story of the fall and the rise and the fall of the legendary Memphis soul label.
In December 1967 the legendary soul singer Otis Redding was killed in a plane accident, depriving the musical world of one of its great singers, and costing his record label, Stax, their leading light, both artistically and commercially.
A matter of weeks later, the company also discovered that - due to a catastrophic business error - they no longer owned the rights to their back catalogue. The label that brought us Otis, Booker T & The MGs, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, Rufus & Carla Thomas and many , many more was on its knees with no prospect of survival ahead.
But within three years, Stax was one of the most successful African American companies in the world, boasting an entirely new roster of stars like Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and William Bell and expanding into concert promotion, film production, Broadway musicals and the world of rock music. They released 30 albums and 28 singles in a three month period, and rebuilt from the ground up.
Their 1972 Wattstax festival in Los Angeles boasted the largest bill of soul artists ever assembled performing to the biggest audience of African Americans ever seen paying the lowest admission fee in history thanks to an innovative use of sponsors. And that was before the multi-album, multi-platinum record releases from the show hit the shops, and the huge grossing feature documentary hit the cinemas. And then Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for "Shaft".
But at the same time there were other forces at play. Stax - always an informally integrated company in the deep South of the Civil Rights movement - was hit hard by the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in April 1968 and struggled to adjust to a new & intimidating era of prejudice and violence.
In 1974, an ambitious expansion into mainstream rock music came badly undone for the company, and amidst accusations of racism and fraudulent financial chicanery involving millions of dollars, Stax was wound up in January 1976.
40 years after its doors shut for the last time, the Stax alumni come together to tell the story of this great label with all its ups & downs, the triumphs and the disasters.
The Staple Singers - I'll Take You There [Stax]
Isaac Hayes - By The Time I Get To Phoenix [Stax]
Isaac Hayes - Theme From "Shaft" [Connoisseur Collection]
The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself [Stax]
Big Star - Back Of A Car [Ardent]
The Stax Music Academy Band - I Can't Turn You Loose
William Bell - This Is Where I Live [Decca/Concord]
BBC Radio 2 broadcast: 29th August 2016
Beverley Knight tells the story of the fall and the rise and the fall of the legendary Memphis soul label.
In December 1967 the legendary soul singer Otis Redding was killed in a plane accident, depriving the musical world of one of its great singers, and costing his record label, Stax, their leading light, both artistically and commercially.
A matter of weeks later, the company also discovered that - due to a catastrophic business error - they no longer owned the rights to their back catalogue. The label that brought us Otis, Booker T & The MGs, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, Rufus & Carla Thomas and many , many more was on its knees with no prospect of survival ahead.
But within three years, Stax was one of the most successful African American companies in the world, boasting an entirely new roster of stars like Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and William Bell and expanding into concert promotion, film production, Broadway musicals and the world of rock music. They released 30 albums and 28 singles in a three month period, and rebuilt from the ground up.
Their 1972 Wattstax festival in Los Angeles boasted the largest bill of soul artists ever assembled performing to the biggest audience of African Americans ever seen paying the lowest admission fee in history thanks to an innovative use of sponsors. And that was before the multi-album, multi-platinum record releases from the show hit the shops, and the huge grossing feature documentary hit the cinemas. And then Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for "Shaft".
But at the same time there were other forces at play. Stax - always an informally integrated company in the deep South of the Civil Rights movement - was hit hard by the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in April 1968 and struggled to adjust to a new & intimidating era of prejudice and violence.
In 1974, an ambitious expansion into mainstream rock music came badly undone for the company, and amidst accusations of racism and fraudulent financial chicanery involving millions of dollars, Stax was wound up in January 1976.
40 years after its doors shut for the last time, the Stax alumni come together to tell the story of this great label with all its ups & downs, the triumphs and the disasters.
Beverley Knight & Jamie Cullum - Private Number [East West]
Otis Redding - Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa (Sad Song) [Warner E.S.P.]
Otis Redding - (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay [Polygram TV]
Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Love [Stax]
Booker T. & The MG’s - Soul Limbo [Telstar]
Linda Lyndell - What A Man [Stax]
Carla Thomas - I Like What You're Doing (To Me) [Stax]
William Bell - I Forgot To Be Your Lover
Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign [The Hit Label Ltd]
Isaac Hayes - Precious Precious [Enterprise]
Delaney & Bonnie - Piece Of My Heart [Stax]
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 25th August 2016
Johnnie Walker presents the last in the series on The Atlantic Records Story. Featuring Chic, Robert Plant, Laura Branigan, Debbie Gibson, En Vogue, Bette Midler and Evan Dando.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 24th August 2016
Johnnie Walker continues story of the influential label. Tonight featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, the Rolling Stones and Foreigner.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 23rd August 2016
The history of Atlantic Records presented by Johnnie Walker. Tonight Led Zeppelin - with interviews with Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 22nd August 2016
Part 10 of the 13 part history of Atlantic Records presented by Johnnie Walker. Featuring Ben E. King, The Average White Band, Betty Wright and Ahmet Ertegun. Tonight we hear how Roberta Flack got signed to Atlantic.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 21st August 2016
Johnnie Walker presents part nine of the Atlantic Records Story, Blues Power. Contributors include Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 20th August 2016
Johnnie Walker continues the story of Atlantic Records with episode eight, The English Connection.
Contributors include Keith Richards, Keith Emerson, Jon Anderson and Mick Jones. They talk about the influence of Atlantic on their music and careers, in particular the ways in which the record label's founder and president, Ahmet Ertegun, contributed to their success.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 19th August 2016
Johnnie Walker presents part seven of the Atlantic Records story. It features the Rascals, Buffalo Springfield and the Bee Gees.
Ahmet Ertegun started to pursue more acts that could emulate the "British Invasion", which led him to sign the Bee Gees. We also find out how Sonny and Cher first met and cut their debut, I Got You Babe.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 18th August 2016
Johnnie Walker continues the story of Atlantic Records. In tonight's episode he looks at how Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul, got signed by Atlantic Records, and how the label made her a global superstar and a key voice of the civil rights movement.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 17th August 2016
Johnnie Walker presents part 5 of a unique insight into Atlantic Records. In tonight's episode he features the king of 'Rock n Soul' Solomon Burke, Mr 'Land of 1000 Dances' Wilson Pickett and Dusty Springfield.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 16th August 2016
Tonight Johnnie Walker looks at the work Atlantic did with Stax Records.
Part four includes interviews with Steve Cropper and Booker T from Booker T and the MGs, and features music from Otis Redding as well as stories about his musical genius.
Dave Porter explains how he and Isaac Hayes came up with the Sam and Dave classic Hold On (I'm Coming) and Eddie Floyd talks about Knock on Wood.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 15th August 2016
Johnnie Walker continues the history of Atlantic Records. Tonight he looks at the label's work with jazz music, which was as important as the more popular genres they covered. The first record on Atlantic was a jazz record and Ahmet and his brother Nesuhi were both jazz enthusiasts.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 14th August 2016
Johnnie Walker continues his look at the history of Atlantic Records. Including interviews with Ermet Artegun and Herb Abramson (founders of the label) and Ray Charles.
In part two Johnnie looks at the impact of the Drifters on Atlantic. It's the late 50s and rhythm and blues and jazz is becoming increasingly popular.
In
a 13-part series, Johnnie Walker tells the story of Atlantic Records.
This first episode looks at the early days and how the company was set
up.
Atlantic Records was home to some of the greatest rhythm and
blues and soul singers of all time, including Otis Redding and Ray
Charles. It was Led Zeppelin's label. It was also where the songwriting
team of Leiber and Stoler and producer Jerry Wexler carved out their
careers under the watchful eye of the founder and president Ahmet
Ertegun.
We hear from Ertegun about moving to America with his
father, his love of black music and how he started what was to become a
global business.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 10th September 2016
New Order - Temptation
New Order - True Faith
New Order - Everything Counts
New Order - Ceremony
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
New Order - Subculture
New Order - Sunrise
New Order - Perfect Kiss
New Order - Age Of Concent
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 8th August 2016
Another chance to hear Alexis Korner's series telling the story of the Rolling Stones, first broadcast in 1973.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 7th August 2016
Another chance to hear old friend and mentor of the Rolling Stones, the late Alexis Korner, tell their story. First broadcast in 1973.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 6th August 2016
Alexis Korner presents the fourth part of this landmark documentary series, originally broadcast in 1973.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 5th August 2016
To complement the BBC's My Generation season, another chance to hear Alexis Korner's series telling the story of the Rolling Stones. First broadcast in 1973.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 4th August 2016
To complement the BBC's My Generation season, another chance to hear Alexis Korner's profile of the Rolling Stones, first broadcast in 1973.
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil [BBC]
The Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man [London]
The Rolling Stones - Not Fade Away [ABKCO]
The Rolling Stones - Everybody Needs Somebody [ABKO]
The Rolling Stones - Cops N Robbers
George Bean - It Should Be You [Decca]
Gene Pitney - That Girl Belongs To Yesterday [Vintage Vault Collection]
The Rolling Stones - Little By Little [ABKO]
The Rolling Stones - Confessin' The Blues [London]
The Rolling Stones - It's All Over Now [London]
The Rolling Stones - 2120 South Michigan Avenue [London]
The Rolling Stones - What A Shame [Decca]
The Rolling Stones - Little Red Rooster [K-Tel]
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 3rd August 2016
To complement the BBC's My Generation season, another chance to hear Alexis Korner's series telling the story of the Rolling Stones, first broadcast in 1973. With contributions from Mick Jagger, Ian Stewart and others.
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil
Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated - I Got My Mojo Working [Deram]
The Rolling Stones - I Just Wanna Make Love To You [Decca]
The Rolling Stones - Look What You've Done [Decca]
The Rolling Stones - If You Need Me [Decca]
The Rolling Stones - Fortune Teller [London]
The Rolling Stones - Come On [ABKCO]
The Rolling Stones - (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 [London]
The Rolling Stones - You Can Make It If You Try [Trade Mark]
The Rolling Stones - Memphis Tennessee [London]
The Rolling Stones - Roll Over Beethoven [London]
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 9th August 2016
Steve Lamacq charts the rise and fall of a music empire that helped provide the soundtrack for the last decade of the millennium, featuring interviews with founder Alan McGee and Creation's main artists.
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 31st July 2016
Stuart slips on a kaftan to present a playlist of British psychedelia from 1966 to 1969 including The Ugly's, Jason Crest, Open Mind and The Factory.
Pink Floyd - Chapter 24 [EMI]
The Ugly's - The Quiet Explosion [Sanctuary]
John's Children - Midsummer Night's Scene [Track]
Mick So - Am I The Red One (feat. ley With The Summer Suns) [CBS]
Jason Crest - Black Mass [Scanner Jots]
Nirvana - Rainbow Chaser [Island]
Tomorrow - My White Bicycle [Parlophone]
The Pretty Things - Defecting Grey [Columbia]
The End - Cardboard Watch [Decca]
The Factory - Path Through The Forest [Bri-Tone]
The Accent - Red Sky At Night [Decca]
July - Dandelion Seeds [Bam-Caruso]
The Open Mind - Magic Potion [Philips]
Hapshash & The Coloured Coat - The New Messiah Coming 1985 [Minit]
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 23rd October 2012
A new series in which each week Stuart Maconie examines the final album by a major artist.
This week, Synchronicity by The Police. Released in 1983, it was the band's fifth album and it hit the number one spot on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, it knocked the commercial juggernaut of Michael Jackson's Thriller from the top of the charts, selling over 8 million copies in the process. It also produced five international hit singles, including their most famous track Every Breath You Take.
As Sting & co toured the world to promote their most successful release, each night playing 60,000 seater venues, at that point in their career they could genuinely lay claim to being the biggest band on planet Earth.
Although the split was never officially announced, Synchronicity was to be the last studio album they would ever record. Despite all of the success, the truth was the three members couldn't stand to be in the same room as each other.
With archive interviews from Sting and Andy Summers and brand new contributions from Stewart Copeland, manager Miles Copeland, producer Hugh Padgham and journalist John Pidgeon, Stuart Maconie examines what went wrong.
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 19th March 2013
Paul Gambaccini re-lives Thanksgiving 1969 when The Rolling Stones played Madison Square Garden and recorded an album later reviewed as 'the best rock concert ever put on record'.
In the company of many who were there on the night, including the tour promoter Ronnie Schneider, sound engineer Glyn Johns, Mick Jagger's assistant at the time Jo Bergman, Chip Monck who looked after the lighting, tour manager Sam Cutler, photographer Ethan Russell, and rock journalist Michael Jahn, Paul Gambaccini re-creates the occasion.
Producer: Marya Burgess
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 13th August 2005
Paul Gambaccini uncovers the stories behind the Who's seminal 1970 album, often cited as one of the best live rock albums of all time, with recollections from those who were there, from road crew to audience members to critics to guitarist Pete Townshend.
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 9th January 2004
Paul Gambaccini remembers this 1971 concert, which set the benchmark for pop-music charity events with the help of some of the performers and those who were in the audience as well as Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof.
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 8th July 2016
Six years after his death (7th July 2006) Syd Barrett lives on freeze framed, still young and a striking lost soul of the sixties whose brief moment of creativity outshines those long years of solitude shut away in a terraced house in his home town of Cambridge.
This revealing programme hears how his band Pink Floyd (and family) coped with Barrett's mental breakdown and explores the hurriedly arranged holiday to the Spanish island of Formentera - where the star unravelled. In the programme we also hear about Barrett's pioneering brand of English psychedelic pop typified on early Pink Floyd recordings 'Arnold Layne', 'See Emily Play' and the strange songs on Pink Floyd's impressive debut album 'The Piper At the Gates of Dawn'.
Undoubtedly Barrett's experimentation with the drug LSD affected him mentally and the band members reveal how concerned they were when he began to go catatonic on-stage, playing music that had little to do with their material, or not playing at all. By Spring 1968 Barrett was out of the group and after a brief period of hibernation, he re-emerged in 1970 with a pair of albums, 'The Madcap Laughs' and 'Barrett', but they failed to chart and Barrett retired to a hermit life existing under the watchful gaze of his caring sister Rosemary (featured in the programme).
We hear from David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright (one of the last interviews before his sad passing) about how there was little understanding of mental illness when it came to the drug fused culture of the time. These days a strung out star is hurriedly booked into the Priory and given counselling. As this programme reveals Barrett's mental breakdown was not understood and the steps taken to help him were inappropriate and still rankle the members of Pink Floyd today.
Producer: John Sugar
A Sugar Production for BBC Radio 4.
Mark
Radcliffe charts the history of the unwieldy Mellotron, a bizarre,
tape-driven instrument that dominated the soundscape of the late 60s and
70s and featured on records by The Beatles, The Moody Blues, King
Crimson and Tangerine Dream, to name a few.
BBC Radio 3 broadcast: 25th August 2016
Leeroy Kesiah - Buff Nuff (feat. Roots Manuva)
DRS - Bun Ya (feat. Dub Phizix, Strategy, Skittles, Fox, Chimpo, Konny Kon & T Man)
Problem Child - Fully Fledged [Potent Funk Records]
Lethal Bizzle - Fester Skank (feat. Diztortion) [Virgin]
Oxmo Puccino - Parfois [Cinq 7]
Dillinger - Uncle Charlie
Mokobé - Africa Forever (feat. Jah Cure) [Sony Music]
JME - Sidetracked (feat. Wiley) [Boy Better Know]
Durrty Goodz - Imagine [Inapeace Ltd]
Dennis Brown - Black Magic Woman [Sunshot]
Mavado - Lost Dem
Johnny Clarke - Roots Natty Congo [Virgin]
Intro (320kbs-m4a/3mb/1min)
Outro (320kbs-m4a/2mb/30secs)
